Effortless colors to brighten the day

Interview with B.G. of Getting Through Anxiety

I just did an interview with a wonderful blogger who goes by B.G. and is the author of the blog:

https://gettingthroughanxiety.wordpress.com

We did the interview by email so it’s kind of a Q and A type of interview.  There is so much in store for all the readers/followers/and bloggers out there reading this.  I am thrilled that B.G. agreed to do this interview with me because I have wanted to for a long time.  Let’s start with a piece B.G. wrote about the blog.

“Hi.  My name is  B.G. and I created by blog, Getting Through Anxiety, a little over two years ago.  I’ve struggled with anxiety for several years now and after my dad and therapist recommended that I write about my anxiety, I decided to do so.  Through struggling with anxiety, I have learned how difficult it can be to deal with a mental health issue.

While I created this blog in hopes of helping myself with my anxiety, it has done that and so much more.  In addition to being able to write down my feelings and experiences, I’ve been able to ‘meet’ others online who struggle with similar issues.  Many of these individuals have become great friends and we’ve been able to share both our struggles and accomplishments with each other.  I’ve found that when dealing with anxiety, support and education is key.

In addition to writing about my experiences with anxiety, I also enjoy writing poetry and sharing some of my sketches.  I have always enjoyed writing and I love to be able to help others through such a great medium.”

First and foremost I would like to thank B.G. for sharing with us a bit about the blog Getting Through Anxiety.  I feel there is so much more to this blog than meets the eye.  Let’s get started with some questions.

B.G., on your about page you talk about how your blog is a way for you to share your experiences with anxiety and offer any advice you think is helpful to those who struggle with similar issues.  I myself struggle with anxiety and it can be difficult at times.  What is something that you feel not only helps you with your anxiety but could also help others dealing with anxiety?

I think the most important thing when dealing with anxiety is to remember that different methods help different people.  Not every method is guaranteed to help every single individual.

However, in my experience, I think the best way to deal with anxiety is to use exposure therapy; to expose yourself in small manageable steps to things that you find anxiety-inducing.  For example, if standing in line makes you anxious, you could slowly stand in shorter lines for short periods of time and then slowly increase the amount of time you do so.

I also think that finding positive distractions to focus on is essential when conquering anxiety.  I know for me, I worry about a lot of irrational things.  If I’m not concentrating on my anxiety, I’m not feeling the symptoms.

Below is a picture with random words and a quote that you created yourself.  On your blog you have a page for all your quotes, images, and drawings that you created yourself.

This is one of my favorite ones.  What is your favorite quote and what made you create this particular picture?

My favorite quote that I made up is, “Fear is a liar.  The best weapon against it is the truth.”  This is my favorite because anxiety is always trying to convince me that I am unable to do things.  I know though that this isn’t true.

I created the above picture and quote because I feel that as long as you’re working hard on a consistent basis to get through your obstacles, there is no reason to worry about the future.  I know this can be a hard thing to do sometimes, but I really believe that if we work our hardest, we can get through our obstacles.

The top of the image includes all of the things that will lead to success, progress, etc. and the words on the bottom of the image illustrates the effects that working hard will have on us.

Next I would like to talk about the other blog, Battle of Mind.  There is a page on your blog that links to this blog for everyone to read.  The link is https://blog.battleofmind.com.  One of my favorite posts on this blog is OVERTHINKING-How to break the cycle.  Could you please share some of your points you made in this post that you find helpful?

While I didn’t create the blog, Battle of Mind, I have contributed some guest posts and did write that particular post.

I find thinking about something positive, doing something positive, realizing that negative thoughts make things worse, and reminding yourself that irrational thoughts are irrational important steps to overcoming overthinking.  Overthinking is such an issue for anxiety sufferers and it can lead to so much unnecessary stress.  By thinking and doing something positive, we are concentrating on something we enjoy instead of something that causes us anxiety.  Doing something constructive with our time helps us to do something helpful instead of harmful.

Additionally, we need to realize that concentrating on our negative thoughts only makes us feel like they are real.  So many of our thoughts are just that-thoughts.  Sometimes we spend so much time thinking negatively that we actually bring anxiety upon ourselves.  Something else that is really important is to remind ourselves that when we think irrational thoughts, they have no real substance.  We need to keep reminding ourselves that we are stronger than our anxiety.

I love the post, “Ideas for tracking progress.”  I love the positivity about this post.  It reminds us to stay positive about dealing with anxiety and moving forward.  You gave some great suggestions but one I would like to talk about is, Write daily progress reports.  Someone dealing with anxiety or other mental health issue, how would you suggest someone do this with all that life has going on a daily basis?  Since I deal with anxiety myself I love the idea of daily progress reports but not sure how to get started.

This is an excellent question.  While I admit that it’s not always easy to keep up with, I find that an excellent idea is to set our phone alarms if we can to go off and remind us to practice facing our fears in some way.  This can be by taking small steps to overcome our anxiety either by using exposure therapy or by doing helpful stretches and exercises.

Each time we take a step towards getting through our anxiety, we can write down the time and what we did.  This way we can look back and see what progress we made.  Also, if we didn’t do much one day, we can figure out what we should do the next day so that we can improve.

I am a big advocate for mental health awareness.  What are your feelings or thoughts on this subject?  What would you say to the non-believers?

I think that educating others on mental health is extremely important.  There are so many individuals that struggle with mental health issues and who have family or friends who don’t understand.  For any people out there who don’t believe their loved ones struggle, I ask that you please have an open mind and heart.  Some people are really struggling and lending a helping hand might help that person immensely.

I wanted to touch on all the awards that you have received and the few you have created.  First, congratulations.  Some of the awards your blog (and you) have received are: Liebster award, Sunshine Blogger award, The Versatile blogger award, Dragon’s Loyalty award, The Epically Awesome award for EPIC AWESOMENESS, Blogger Recognition award, The Creative blogger award, The Shine and be Awesome award, The INFINITY DREAMS award, The SANDYCADEMY award, The Miranda sings award, and the Spirit Animal award.  That is one heck of a list!  What do you think contributes to getting nominated for these awards? What are some suggestions you have to all the readers (bloggers) for their blog?

First of all, thank you!

Honestly, I think that I get nominated for awards because people enjoy reading my blog and feel that they can connect with my experiences.  I’ve said this before, but I never imagined I’d meet so many lovely people and that so many individuals struggle with mental health issues.  However, I have learned that there are a great deal of people who are seeking help and who have a lot of wonderful advice and talents to share.

I think what makes a good blog is one that is written by someone who is honest and who genuinely cares about their readers and about the subject that they are writing about.  I think good blogs and bloggers try to connect with their readers and offer kindness and understanding.

You have also created awards.  They are: The Quotable Blogger award, The Kind blogger award, The Amazing Talented Bloggers award, and the B.G. Getting Through Anxiety Talent Blog challenge.  What made you create these awards and challenge?

I started out creating awards because I thought they were a really cool way to show appreciation for other blogs and bloggers.  I guess I just wanted to be a part of the creation process.  Also, I started noticing that a lot of people don’t think that they’re talented, which is far from the truth.  That’s why I created the B.G. Getting Through Anxiety Talent Challenge.

You nominated all your readers/followers/bloggers community for the Amazing Talented Bloggers award.  What do your followers need to do to complete and accept this award?

Well, they don’t have to but the reason I nominated everyone is because I think that every blogger is creative.  Creating a blog is a really amazing thing to do and I think it requires some creativity, especially to make it successful.

You also nominated everyone for the B.G. Getting Through Anxiety Talent Blog challenge.  I have included the link to the post announcing this challenge.  It will show readers what to do to participate.  Here is the link:  https://gettingthroughanxiety.wordpress.com/2016/03/10/introducing/

I know I plan on participating in both the challenge and award!  Thank you for creating these.  They are both great!

You’re very welcome!

I want to include something fun about you and your blog.  What is your dream vacation?

I’d love to go to Italy!  The artwork there is amazing and my grandma was Sicilian.

Lastly, the quote on your about page, “A world without goals is like life without water-DRY, STALE, and IMPOSSIBLE to LIVE WITHOUT.”  Could you leave us with a goal(s) you have or goals we could all work on?

Well my main goal is to get through my anxiety and learn to manage it better.  I also want to be a professional writer one day.  I think everyone’s goal in life is just to be happy, healthy, and kind.

That ends this interview with B.G. the author of https://gettingthroughanxiety.wordpress.com blog.  Thank you B.G. for taking your time to do this interview.  I greatly appreciate it and hope all the readers enjoyed it as much as I did!

Thank you, Jen!

Much Love

XOXO-Jen

 

If you could remove one obstacle from your life what would it be?

If you could pick just one thing that is holding you back and remove it from you current situation what might that be? This is the question I asked myself (as the title says).  While thinking of the answer I began wondering of the many things I might would change in my life but at what cost?

Here is the dilemma, by removing one obstacle what would I be changing and could this affect my future. We all think that if we had more money, or different living situations, etc. things would be better.  However, would it really be or would it bring more challenges in our life? With that said, I feel that I am where I am at for a reason.  Yes, I would love to be healthy, have more money, drive a fancy car and so on.  This is just materialistic besides the health.

Even when we look at others and think they have everything, behind close doors I am sure there is something they wish they could change.  I sometimes think what life would be like if I didn’t have all the health issues I deal with but my health is what inspired me to create my blog.  I use my health problems as a platform for speaking to others.  I want each and every person to know that the best thing to do when dealing with a health crisis is to stay positive and know that things could be worse.  I don’t know if that is the best way of putting things but this is how I look at it.

I feel God has presented these obstacles in my life for a reason and he has a plan for me.  I always look at the saying, “ God gives his toughest challenges to his strongest warriors.”  

Lastly, I would love to hear your opinions and thoughts on this question and how you might answer it.  Please feel free to speak freely and honest.  I want to thank all my readers/followers and bloggers community for reading this and as always would love to hear your comments.

XOXO-Jen  

How are you limiting yourself?

I have an app on my Ipad that is called Brainsparker and it gives you simple questions, quotes, ideas, and pictures to give you a boost for your writing.  I have a wondrous list of favorites with this app that has sparked my writing creativity for blog posts! The title of this post is just one of many I decided to start with.

I feel that I haven’t delivered properly on my blog for my readers/followers/bloggers community and I need to gain your trust again that I will be more active.  I also need to prove this with results through my blog.

Back to the title of this post, how are you limiting yourself?  As I answer this question, I challenge each one of you to ask yourself this same question. Maybe, you are willing to take this journey with me on the multiple posts coming with titles like this or pictures and even quotes.

I have been limiting myself due mainly to procrastination.  I have always had this problem because I let clutter fill up my mind and trying to get it organized is a task in itself.  Not only has this been limiting, I have also had so many doctor appointments within the last few weeks that even though they have turned out positive I let myself worry myself into a tailspin of unneeded what-ifs.

Now comes the question about what my plan is to overcome this issue and stop letting this jeopardize my writing for my blog and my goals of writing a book, doing the interviews I promised, along with the blog reviews of all these amazing blogs that deserve the feedback.  

I have been focused on decluttering my mind.  I have taken steps by devoting each room of my home and making each room more organized.  I have created a nook with all my writing materials along with a new chromebook to work off of.  I have been working on letting go of unneeded and unused things to donate to Goodwill. This has provided me additional space to properly place pieces that I currently need.  I also have finally reorganized my kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom.

Another big issue I am tackling is getting all my doctor’s appointments, medicine, and anything health related placed in the needed places, which has made things extremely less stressful.  It has made everything simpler keeping track of it all.

Lastly, has been the hardest of all.  This is my continue battle with procrastination.  Dealing with this is something I have to address within myself.  I continue to tell my inner-self that I must only tackle one task at a time.  For me this is extremely hard to conquer.  I have a long way to go but I am trying one day at a time.  I have grasped the understanding that this can’t be done overnight but with willingness, being persistent and devoted I can achieve these goals that are limiting me.

I would love to hear your comments on this post.  I am open to any suggestions and all advice will be greatly appreciated.  I want to thank you for taking the time to read this and I look forward to your responses.

XOXO-Jen   

I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE…..

So, I was reading the February issue of Cosmopolitan (U.S.) about staying positive and motivated in the workplace. Even though I’m a stay at home mom and blogger I wanted to share a simple game that everyone can do, work or not.

Does everyone remember the game “I spy with my little eye…?”

After a long day at work or home try playing this game. The difference is find 3 things no matter how small and say to yourself, “I spy with my little eye ______ and it makes me smile.

I think this a great idea for a pick me up and motivating. What do you all think?

Milestone REACHED

I reached a milestone of 1,000 LIKES on my blog and really made me happy along with inspired, motivated, encouraged, uplifted, and the list goes on!  I want to thank all my readers, followers, and bloggers family/community, it is because of you that I reached this milestone!  With that said, I owe you many thanks!!!

My next goal is to reach 300 followers on WordPress and even more on the other sites!

2016 has begun here!

Happy happy happy New Year from good old Tennessee in the US. I’m so lucky to have such wonderful, kind, passionate, inspirational,  lovely, funny, opinionated, and the list goes on of followers, readers, and bloggers in this family/community!

XOXO-Jen

Positive energy needed this way….

Good afternoon to all bloggers/followers/readers! I am once again slacking with my blog posts.

I’m currently in the hospital with hopes of getting out of here tomorrow. I was admitted because of my feeding tube dislodged and having some awful seizures. I don’t want to say much about it because I feel that it’s negative and I only want to focus on the positive stuff. I hope that’s understandable.

I didn’t have the chance to post a question like the post I did on your favorite pastime games and TV shows. I will post something in the next hour. I hope to see more comments this time.

I hope everyone is having a WONDERFUL start to the holiday season!